By Charles T.M.J. Dube

MY father had more than 100 goats and more than 100 sheep when we were growing up.
We had more than 25 kids at any one time which we separated from their nannies which we released to go grazing and trained to come back home for breastfeeding and penning.
Each time, we always had this odd doe that did not want to suckle, so we had to press it down to allow the kid to suckle.
It was during such chores that I tasted the delicacy of goat milk which was culturally looked down upon in our area.
Once in a while, we had cows that killed their calves after calving.
These does and cows were not demon-possessed, but had had some changes in their hormonal balance after delivery that affected their moods.
This phenomenon is common to all mammals — humans included — and is some form of post-natal disorder.
Next time you hear your daughter is disinterested in her child soon after giving birth and is not even interested in feeding him/her, know that she is undergoing baby blues.
This is the entry level in post-natal depression and at higher stages, it is known as post-natal depression and lastly postpartum psychosis.
With baby blues, mothers feel irritable, fatigued and anxious or generally sad, crying over matters of no consequence.
This can last a few hours or at most two weeks after delivery.
The sheer process of giving birth will always result in swings in emotions, marked by highs and lows of the symptoms mentioned above.
It is only as the lows keep overtaking the highs in a persistent manner with the lows not lifting that we no longer talk of baby blues, but ascendancy into post-natal depression (PND).
There must be adequate balance of the highs and lows to circumvent PND.
For baby blues, only some of those negative feelings occur once in a while and over a brief period of time, unlike in PND where it becomes fully-fledged depression.
If a mother was depressed during pregnancy, chances are she could find herself getting into some PND.
In the case of one Chenai, she never suffered pre-natal depressions and so the chances are that some of the symptoms could slowly creep in during her baby blues episodes until they set base and she finds herself in a PND.
According to Morag Martindale, these symptoms could include:
– Constant negative thoughts and feelings.
– Anxiety about things that wouldn’t normally bother her.
– Taking no pleasure from being with her baby, or feeling hostile towards the child, her partner, or her other children.
– Extremely worried about her baby’s health, even though she/he’s fine, or thinking she is a hopeless mother, even if she is doing well.
– Fearful that she might harm her baby.
– Being obsessed with her own health or the baby’s, such as whether or not the child is gaining weight, or is breathing properly.
She also says that some of the symptoms could include feeling:
– persistently sad or low
– no pleasure in the things she usually enjoys
– feeling exhausted and lacking in motivation
– feeling guilty, perhaps about not coping, or not loving her baby enough
– lacking in confidence
– ready to blame herself for everything
– not keen to see friends or family
– irritable and tearful
If a mother has PND, she may also suffer from:
– panic attacks that cause a rapid heartbeat, sweating, sickness or fainting
– tummy pains, headaches or blurred vision
– a loss of appetite, or the urge to comfort eat
– suicidal feelings, or the urge to self-harm
– a low sex drive
Over 30 percent of women experience symptoms of PND whether it be at the more harmless baby blues, but the most important thing for one to cope is to know that she has them which will help her cope, just the same way the pre-natal pregnancy ones are much easier to cope with because they are popularised, more known and hence recognised as passing phases by the affected.
Many mothers are affected differently and it is advisable to seek help when these feelings become too constant or are getting worse as this can lead to some mental disorder known as PND.
But if a woman is experiencing many of these feelings, and they are constant or getting worse, then seek professional help as this can lead to some mental illness known as postpartum psychosis.
This condition, also known as puerperal or post-natal psychosis, though rare, is a serious mental illness that can affect mothers within a few days or weeks of giving birth and can develop suddenly within a few hours.
The blame game for not having seen the sign should therefore end just here.
This condition bears lots of similarities to bi-polar disorders as well as manic depressions and affects one in every 1 000 mothers in the world.
Early signs will be restlessness, excitement or insomnia (lack of sleep).
The victim will probably hear voices and have some hallucinations; experience extreme mood swings; feel disconnected from reality; delusions; or exhibit weird behaviour such as cleaning the house in the middle of the night.
At first the mother may feel restless, excited or elated and be unable to sleep.
This may lead to the mother developing more unusual psychotic-type symptoms.
Postpartum psychosis has more similarities with bi-polar disorder and manic depression than it has with depression.
This article has been motivated by the desire to let this condition be known to the general public.
There is no doubt many marriages have broken down as this condition is not well known and an unsuspecting spouse could imagine ‘madhimoni okwavanatezvara avakubuda manje’ (manifesting avenging spirits from the in-laws) and would have none of it.
In last week’s article, I intended to also write about another funeral I recently attended – that of Susan Dangarembwa who died aged 91 and was buried at Warren Hills.
An educationist she was!
Zimbabwe’s first woman university graduate in 1953 and the first woman public service commissioner in 1983.
She was very gifted intellectually and she was always the youngest in her class, jumping grades in the process.
In the second group of form one pupils at Goromonzi in 1947, she was to make history in the then Southern Rhodesia when she produced the best results for the entire country in 1950.
Professor Arthur Mutambara, one of her former students and also a member of the same bloodline as her late husband would, in his eulogy, quote Sir Godfrey Huggins, the then Southern Rhodesia Prime Minister’s response when Dangarembwa beat blacks and whites alike in her ‘O’-Level results: “Well, Susan Ngomyama’s results mean blacks and whites are intellectually equal.
However, socially the whites are still superior.”
She had, in that year, beaten distinguished academics who included her late husband, Amon Dangarembwa, Prof Walter Kamba and the distinguished medical doctor, Dr Davison Sadza.